The Whitecaps haven’t won a game in over a calendar week. The last was a 7-0 win over Harwich on July 17.

Luckily for Brewster, it had its shot at the Mariners again — a team that was reeling just as much, or even more so. While Brewster had only won three of its last 10, Harwich had lost its last seven games and won just two in the entire month of July. Thursday was the chance for Brewster to right the ship.

But that chance was squandered by one poor pitch and nine innings of minimal offense. Brewster (12-19-2) fell, 2-1, to Harwich (11-22) at Whitehouse Field, pushing the team closer to the outside of the playoff picture.

With each game it looks as if reaching the playoffs and clinching a top-four seed in the Eastern Division will come down to the final games of the regular season. Still, manager Jamie Shevchik hopes there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

“You have to imagine that for these guys that are working their a** off every day, it's going to show up at some point,” Shevchik said postgame.

Left-handed pitcher Donovan Burke (James Madison) started the game for the Mariners, making his third appearance of the summer. Burke started one game for the Whitecaps in the summer of 2021 and recorded a 5.19 ERA in five collegiate seasons.

Against his former team, Burke started off by striking out one batter and retiring the side in order. In the second, versus the heart of Brewster’s order, the Harwich defense didn’t help him much, recording two errors in the infield. However, Burke worked himself out of trouble, picking off Daniel Cuvet (Miami) at first before forcing a flyout to center field and a groundout to third.

Burke struck out two batters in the third and allowed no hits in the fourth. Against the lefty, Shevchik inserted six right-handed batters into the Whitecaps lineup. Though, Burke has proven to have reverse splits in the CCBL, allowing a .257 average to righties and a .308 average to lefties.

While most of the Whitecaps’ lineup was silent, Nick Dumesnil (Cal Baptist) dominated. After a double in the third inning, Dumesnil stepped to the plate in the fifth with DeAmez Ross (UCF) on first. Ross advanced to second on a balk and then Dumesnil drilled a ball into the left-center gap at 102 mph, scoring Ross easily and cutting the deficit to one.

“Our offense is better. We're struggling right now, really struggling. There were some good signs that came out of today though,” Shevchik said.

Other than Dumesnil, the Brewster offense found nothing against Burke, recording just four hits and one run through seven innings.

“He just mixed it up with up, down and out,” Shevchik said of Burke. “He threw pitches for strikes and kept our offense at bay.”

Whitecaps starter Evan O’Toole (Oklahoma State) made his first appearance of the summer following spending last summer in Falmouth and appearing in eight games for the Trenton Thunder of the MLB Draft League in 2024.

O’Toole impressed, using primarily fastballs to strike through the Mariners' top of the order. Harwich entered Tuesday’s game with a .672 team OPS, ranking third-to-last in the CCBL.

Despite success in finding the strike zone — throwing first-pitch strikes to the first five batters — Harwich hit O’Toole hard in the second. Two hard-hit singles by Wilson Weber (Oregon State) and Jake Ogden (Miami) started the frame before a 391-foot fly ball to the warning track moved both of them up on a sacrifice fly.

Then Michael Anderson (Arkansas) — who entered the game just four for his last 54 — scorched a fastball 101 mph in the left-center gap, scoring Weber and Ogden to hand the Mariners an early 2-0 lead.

It was one poor pitch, and the Harwich eight-hole hitter drove in the only two runs needed to win the game.

O’Toole lost command in the bottom of the third inning, hitting two batters. But he quickly bounced back and got out of the jam without any further damage. He walked two more in the fourth but stranded them yet again. He finished the day throwing just four innings because of a 70-pitch total but ended with two earned runs on three hits.

Parker Detmers (Louisville) entered in relief of O’Toole and faced the minimum in the fifth inning before striking out the side in the sixth. In the seventh, Detmers needed just eight pitches to retire the Mariners, allowing Brewster to stay within striking distance. The next inning, Detmers put down Harwich 1-2-3 again, finishing his outing with five strikeouts and no runs in four innings.

“He's filling it up and his confidence is out the roof. Everything about him is just getting better,” Shevchik said of Detmers. “He's been one of the probably the biggest bright spots that we've seen all summer long.”

Following Burke’s stellar outing for Harwich, Sam Tookoian (Ole Miss) came in to protect the one-run lead with a six-out save. He continued the domination, striking out two batters looking in the eighth. In the ninth, he struck out three more, putting Brewster away for good.

While the loss was a familiar sight for the Whitecaps, the positives were apparent. A stellar outing for O’Toole in his debut. An emerging star in Detmers on the mound. And the consistent electricity of Dumesnil at the plate and on the basepaths.

But when it comes to the playoff picture, the result of the contest is all that matters. And with seven games remaining in the regular season, the final spot in the East Division playoffs will go to either Brewster, Orleans or Harwich.

Something’s got to give, and Shevchik remains confident that his group’s work will eventually pay off.

“If we're going to lose, I'd rather lose with a really good working group of guys that I love being around,” he said. “Because you know what, I've won and it wasn't that much fun with guys that didn't put in the time and effort. So I'm in this until the end with these guys.”